Starfield/Skybox Update

Ok, in the interest of keeping things organized, I'm moving the discussion of the starfield and skybox from the UI discussion to this new thread.

So, the current skybox is using a single square image to generate all 6 sides of the cube, so what can be done to make it more robust?

If it's able to handle a more traditional 6 square image, I feel pretty confident that I can create something that'll work.

I know that @daid would like to keep things fairly dark with less colorful nebula, and I think we've got a good image, we just need to be able to display it better.

Bringing @Fouindor and @kwadroke into the discussion as well, since they've been testing and gathering info.

Additionally, if we can utilize a more complex skybox, then using a generator like this might be possible.

Comments

  • edited March 2016
    The code for the skybox is located starting at line 69 in src/screenComponents/viewport3d.cpp

    Might be able to change the start and stop positions to use a more complex skybox.
  • Ran a few tests with Spacescape (thanks for the link, the site is quite complete with tutorials and all) and obtained this space texture :
    image

    Seems ok ingame :
    image
    image
  • edited March 2016
    Here's some pics to help understand the current skybox settings

    You can save this as resources/Stars.png to see for yourself how EE handles the skybox.

    image


    Some in game screenshots from the Main screen with all 4 views.

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    image

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    image
  • Also note that some nebula get drawn "into" the skybox as well, so even if the background texture is fairly simplistic, the random nebulae add some variation right off the bat.

    Then on top of this, in-map nebula add some more visual interest.
  • I tried a number of different skybox type images but didn't get good results. I'd love to grab the background of this site to try out. Maybe an image that doesn't have a noticeable pattern on any edge? Then again maybe that would give a noticeable black line of empty stars.
  • I was able to make a pretty good one by taking a starfield, and just going around the edge and erasing only those stars that touch or cross the edge of the image. So the very edge of all sides was black, but there were a few stars that came close to it.
  • Here's an image created the same way as I created the background.

    image

    Instructions I followed for creating in GIMP:
    https://www.maketecheasier.com/create-space-scenes-in-gimp/
  • daid said:
    Nice! So I should set up 6 images that blend together at the edges?
  • Yeps, exactly as the skybox shown in the UI topic.
  • So, out of curiosity, are you considering allowing for more than one skybox? either randomized or selected during game setup.
  • edited March 2016
    I have been playing around with different UI styles or themes. To do this I just copy the entire resources folder and put it in its own folder in the mods folder. Right now I have blue, blue2, green, t_gui, and yellow. I can give each station a different theme by changing the mod= line in the options.ini file. What I was thinking of today was writing a small program to select the theme, modify the options.ini file with the chosen theme folder, and launch the game. I could select a different theme for each station without having to edit the options.ini file manually.
  • Ok, I think I got this right, I can't wait to see some screenshots of this in action...

    Front
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    Back
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    Left
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    Right
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    Top
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    Bottom
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  • Looks great !

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    I tested on a VERY old computer, which gives me that when I try to do most things :
    image
  • Looks pretty seamless:
    image


    Note that my update also make sure the texture is no longer limited to a resolution of 1024x1024. It does look a bit pixelated. Not sure if that is resolution or the image itself.
  • daid said:

    Looks pretty seamless:
    image


    Note that my update also make sure the texture is no longer limited to a resolution of 1024x1024. It does look a bit pixelated. Not sure if that is resolution or the image itself.

    That's probably the image itself, I did have to upsample it a bit to make it work. I can definitely see where the corners of the skybox are. I might tweak it at some point to minimize the occurrence of the "this is obviously a box" effect. But this new skybox opens up a TON of possibilities for the game's backdrop.
  • Note that due to how the camera is currently angled, you cannot even see the top image (the old skybox code the top did not even work I noticed when fixing up these new images)
  • Ok, here's an updated version, this time without up-scaling. I also tried to minimize the amount of blue nebulae at the edges, so hopefully we won't see anything "folding" from one side to another. (Here's all of the files in a zip, for convenience)

    Front
    image

    Back
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    Left
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    Right
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    Top
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    Bottom
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  • It looks better, but you can tell where the corners are of the skybox when you change the view on main screen. There's one corner in particular with a nebula that makes it easier to tell.
  • I may need to find a way to warp the textures to give the appearance of being spherical.
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